The first 10 minutes : Full Auto

Remember, almost 2 years ago Microsoft presented a very impressive tech demo called "Crash" for the XNA development tools. Full Auto is the ultimate evolution of this demo, and I sure hoped it would be as fun as it was spectacular back in the days. What I had not anticipated was the framerate...

Yes, I won't let you guys wait any longer, the framerate in Full Auto is just unacceptable. This is a very arcade racing game with a 60 fps framerate, but it's so rare for this game to be smooth that it's just incredible it has been released as is. You'll see by yourself in my video, at times the game runs below 20 fps or even less ! There is no excuse for such a framerate, especially since the game is not *that* spectacular looking to begin with.
It's worth mentioning that the game runs smoother on a 4:3 SDTV than on a widescreen SDTV or HDTV. But even then it's still quite far
from being perfectly smooth.

The big selling point of this game was the physics engine. While some explosions can be very spectacular, it's important to remember that we are not free to destroy anything we want. Except for a few exceptions most building are not destructible, and most of the time it's only possible to destroy some key elements to cut a corner for example. Still, when the physics kicks in for a big destruction sequence it can be quite a sight, unfortunately most of the time it happens just behind us because one of our missiles/bullets triggered the explosion as we went past.

The gameplay itself is very simple and intuitive, as it should be. Besides the usual nitro and the weapons it's possible most of the time to "rewind" the game for a few seconds to attempt to get faster past a corner or to evade an opponent's missile. This is a nice feature, quite well done, but after some time playing the same tracks it's hardly useful anymore.

I can't stress enough how disappointed I am by this game. The framerate simply isn't acceptable, killing any chance for the game to be really enjoyable. A shame, really.

MS does not have to decide if a game should be released or not, all they verify is that it does *work* as it should, eg not delete the hard drive when it shouldn't and stuff like that.
They can give advices to devs, but in the end if the game is within the guidelines and is certified then MS can't do anything more.

What was the story for the european release? I read somewhere that the euro release of FA had some sort of paper included in the DVD case warning the gamer to put the TV in 50 or 60hz? and I also read that if you didn't switch to the hz rating the game ran freakishly slow.

Did you play with that? Or it doesn't apply when in HD? (sorry I don't live in euroland so the hz ratings is all new to me)

the game does have kinda of a photo mode feature. I think its if you hit the dpad it plays back the last 10 seconds of gameplay like a replay, u can control the camera and views. So you can replay a huge crash/destructive part for fun :p

They are not satisfied with the quality of the videos. We (in fact, Snoopers IS) are currently working on a final version with color correction and stuff like that, hopefully they will be ok with that.